FrenchCoûter un bras
Meaning: To be outrageously expensive.
Literally: To cost an arm
Example: “Réparer la toiture va nous coûter un bras.” — Fixing the roof is going to cost us an arm and a leg.
English equivalent: To cost an arm and a leg
Other ways to say this
Spanish: Costar un ojo de la cara Literally: To cost an eye from the face
Finnish: Maksaa maltaita Literally: To cost malts
English: To cost an arm and a leg- French: Ça pique Literally: It stings
- French: Coûter la peau des fesses Literally: To cost the skin off one's backside / the eyes out of one's head
Origin: An import rather than a native French figure: it renders the English to cost an arm and a leg, and Canadian French sometimes extends it with et la moitié de l'autre. The English original is itself unsettled, spreading in the early 20th century. Proposals include the older to give one's right arm for something, military stripes worn on the sleeve and stripped away with a demotion, and portrait painters charging extra to include limbs — that last one widely repeated and poorly supported.
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